Resilient Cities: Urban Strategies for Transition Times

The call for climate action, the prospect of a quickly shifting energy future, pressure for new approaches in almost every urban system, and the shock of the economic downturn have North American cities scrambling to comprehend and manage the shift toward ecological practices and greater resilience.

At the heart of this Resilient Cities conference are these ideas:

• Cities are powerful agents for climate action and ecological governance;
• It’s crucial to develop powerful new sustainability collaborations between business, civic leadership and the communities that make up our cities;
• The emergent green economy, new green jobs, and a green way of doing old jobs together represent an important new economic development/training/education strategy;
• The concepts and practices of ecological citizenship need to spread more thoroughly through all segments of society and all constituencies;
• Cities—as social and political units—are leading the way in sustainability innovation in the areas of governance, policy and implementation. This capacity, these skills, need to be perfected and widely shared;
• Practitioners from all sectors—technical professions, elected folks, developers, non-profit agencies, post-secondary institutions, community leadership, etc.—are in on this reawakening to commons values. It’s time to maximize collaboration and partnerships. It’s time for the whole city to go green.
   

The conference will explore strategies to make cities more robust.

In addition, this premier event on urban sustainability will also feature an exciting stream focussing on green media: We already have the ideas, examples, and the know-how that can spark the economies of change we need. But how can we leverage that change as soon as possible, and quickly disseminate these fresh approaches to more receptive audiences? Doing so will take nothing less than magic. Luckily, we have that at our disposal as well: it's called media. Still, media is a complex, constantly changing brew these days. What is today's leading edge of media magic? How can we best use this plethora of communication tools and strategies to support more urban resilience? Join a conversation with Bill Weaver, founder and facilitator of Media that Matters, and a group of some of today's sharpest minds in conventional and unconventional media, as we collectively explore today's tech-tonic shifts and how we can tap their potential. North American journalists representing mainstream and green media are invited to participate in this ‘green media that matters’ program, and to be part of (and report on) the conference.